


and i claw for solid ground

by owilde



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hopeful Ending, Introspection, No Dialogue, Reminiscing, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, i had to get this out of my system lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-03 00:04:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15807267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owilde/pseuds/owilde
Summary: Clementine remembered so much she choked on it, and on nights like this, when her heart was bursting and her limbs ached, she climbed to the roof of the school and sat still and quiet, and tried to forget.





	and i claw for solid ground

**Author's Note:**

> i just think clementine would be sad a lot, you know. they all would. also, i think i'm getting depressed again, so like, i needed an uplifting ending for this one sdfjhj
> 
> title taken from sarah mclachlan's "full of grace"

Nights had always felt easier.

There was a gentle warm breeze that caressed Clementine’s skin and scattered the leaves down by the courtyard. She tucked her hair behind her ears and drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around them, curling in on herself. It was turning into late autumn – October, if she had to wager a guess. The grass had withered and died and the trees were shedding their green, turning to delicious reds and oranges and yellows.

Summer had always been her favorite season as a kid. There had been something so wonderful about all the freedom, the bright and warm sun, the blooming nature. She’d gone to the beach with her parents and she’d made sandcastles. She’d had her dad make her lemonade. She’d crawled into bed between her parents and they’d complained about how stifling the heat was, but they’d let her stay anyway, tucked safely in her mom’s loose embrace and lulled to sleep by her dad’s snores.

Clementine thought maybe some of the childhood memories she had, she’d made up. There were things in her mental catalog she couldn’t possibly have recalled. But there they were, regardless.

Summer had always been her favorite. Now it was because during summer, food was easier to come by. No one froze to death. There was no danger of crashing through thin ice to the freezing depths and dying with your lungs full of cold water.

So, summer was nice. But autumn was alright, too.

Clementine glanced up at the clear night sky. She’d known constellations once upon a time, had known how to count the stars and had known the stories behind them. Her mom had told them to her when she’d been young – so young that it hurt to think about, now. It felt like a lifetime ago. It had been a different life, in a different world, where they'd all been different people.

She couldn’t think about how much she’d lost, because it was simply too much to comprehend at once. She could think about things individually, though. Some of her memories were lost on her – repressed, she assumed, drowned out by her mind trying to keep itself together. She needed to cope somehow, and if there was nothing traumatic to remember, she could pretend that just for a moment, things were alright.

Except, there was so much she did remember. Clementine remembered the sound of Lee’s voice, despite having forgotten the exact picture of what his face had looked like. She remembered the coarseness of his hands, despite having forgotten what color his shirt had been. She remembered her mom’s smile and her father’s quiet laughter, despite having forgotten what either of them had done for a living. She remembered the drawings on her bedroom walls, despite not for the life of her remembering what color her walls had been.

She remembered so much she choked on it, and on nights like this, when her heart was bursting and her limbs ached, she climbed to the roof of the school and sat still and quiet, and tried to forget.

From up there, she could see most of the surrounding area of the school. The graveyard loomed in her peripheral vision, accusatory and bitter. She turned her head slightly away from it, not feeling up to fighting those particular demons tonight. Instead, she stared at the line of trees starting from behind the gate.

The woods looked dark and unwelcoming during the night; the trees became stringy and oddly shaped, the space between them unnerving. An old fairy tale slipped into Clementine’s mind, one her dad had told her. Something to do with wolves, and a hunter. She supposed it had been meant to scare children away from the forest – or to just scare them, in general. Clementine wished she still found fairy tales scary.

Nowadays, all her nightmares revolved around things that were made scary by the nature of their tangibility. If she dreamed of AJ being bitten and turned while there was nothing she could do, it didn’t matter that she woke up and realized it had all been a dream. There was no guarantee it could never become her reality. There was nothing she could tell herself and her panicked mind to ease her breathing, to bring her back down.

Sometimes, Clementine wished there was someone there to lie and tell her everything would be alright. Sometimes, she just wanted to be wrapped in somebody’s arms and be held for a while. Sometimes, she blinked her eyes open in the middle of the night and thought about Violet, and these things, and their potential internationalism, and realized she still had the capability to feel afraid.

Clementine had caught herself staring at Violet more often than not. She’d found her heart did this weird flip whenever Violet bit her lip or brushed her hair aside or made a face at Louis. It was a crush. It was silly. It was so human, and it made Clementine so afraid to lose it.

She wanted to borrow Aasim’s journal and write dumb poems about the exact color of Violet’s eyes. She wanted to find out Violet’s favorite book and school subject and the names of her parents. She wanted to know her favorite state, what she’d wanted to do when she’d grow up, who her celebrity crush had been.

She wanted to feel butterflies when their hands brushed, and she wanted to have the courage to take Violet’s hand in hers and squeeze and never let go, come hell or high water.

But it was all so fragile. Everything in their world was. Violet felt as permanent now as Lee had felt when Clementine had been a child, but just like Lee, there was no sure way of knowing that any of it would last – that either of them would.

Clementine didn’t think death scared her anymore, at least not most of the time. It used to – as a child, before everything, and later, and especially after Lee. Lee had made her simultaneously so brave and so afraid, it was almost funny.

But these days, she had times where she thought it might be a comfort. Times where, no matter how hard she thought about the future and AJ and Lee and her parents, there seemed to be little point to life as it was. No reason to see another morning, no reason not to let go and let a walker devour what hollow shell was left of her during those moments.

If every day was a struggle, if every meal became more of a fading possibility and people died all the time, from reasons that didn’t even have anything to do with walkers – if living felt like a race she hadn’t signed up for, and the goal of which was to die anyway – then what was the point?

But these feelings and thoughts would always eventually pass. There was always a point. There would always be a new spark of hope, a new person, a new source of food and safety. There were stories yet to be invented, stories that had been destroyed and were waiting to be re-written. There was her story, and AJ’s, both only at their starting points despite having gone through more than anyone could’ve ever asked for.

There was the quiet hope that Clementine could at least be a chapter or two in Violet’s story.

She picked up a loose rock and rolled it idly around, feeling the sharp edges press against her fingertips. There were still new things to experience, she thought. New people. New chances. Civilizations had risen from less foundation. Empires had been built from worse circumstances. There was always a way, somewhere, somehow.

Clementine still had years left. She still had the time to hold Violet’s hand, to kiss her, to feel her heartbeat, steady and alive. She still had time to see AJ grow up, get taller, get mad at the world, love, heal. She’d get to hear his voice break and crack. She’d get to see so many more sunsets and sunrises, so many full moons and starry skies like this.

There was so much of her life she hadn’t seen. And she was going to fight tooth and nail to keep this life she’d carved out for herself.

She threw the rock off the rooftop, and watched it disappear into the darkness. A small smile graced her lips. Tomorrow, she’d ask Violet what her favorite color was. Tomorrow, there’d be a new day to live through. Tomorrow, she’d make sure to remember, even when it hurt. Because forgetting hurt more, she’d found – and Clementine didn’t want to hurt, anymore.


End file.
